true blue

WE, the people of a free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasionalwanker. We come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from NewZealand) and although we live in the best country in the world, we reservethe right to b!tch and moan about it whenever we b!oody like. We are OneNation but we're divided into many StatesFirst, there's Victoria, named after a queen who didn't believe in lesbians.Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, cafe latte, grand-final dayand a big horse races. Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitchis that "it's liveable". At least that's what they think. The rest of usthink it is too b!oody cold and wet.Next, there's NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar, thinbooks read quickly and millions of dancing queens. It's capital Sydney hasmore queens than any other city in the world and is proud of it. Its mascotsare Bondi lifesavers who pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the leftand right sides of their brains separate.Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the familythat bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets an extrachromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternestfaces. It holds the world record for a single mass shooting, which the Yankscan't seem to beat no matter how often they try.South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival offoreigners and bizarre axe murders. SA is the state of innovation. Whereelse can you so effectively reuse country bank vaults and barrels as inSnowtown, just out of Adelaide (also named after a queen). They had theGrand Prix, but lost it when the views of Adelaide sent the Formula Onedrivers to sleep at the wheel.Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant. It's main claimto fame is that it doesn't have daylight saving because if it did all themen would get erections on the bus on the way to work. WA was the last stateto stop importing convicts and many of them still work there in thegovernment and business.The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, cattlestations the size of Europe, Kangaroos, Jackaroos, Emus, Uluru and dustykids with big smiles. It also has the highest beer consumption of anywhereon the planet and its creek beds have the highest aluminium content ofanywhere too. Although the Territory is the centre piece of our nationalculture, few of us live there and the rest prefer to fly over it on our wayto Bali.And there's Queensland. While any mention of God seems silly in a documentdefining a nation of [email protected] sceptics, it is worth noting that Godprobably made Queensland as its beautiful one day and perfect the next. Whyhe filled it with d!ckheads remains a mystery.Oh yes and there's Canberra. The least said the better.We, the citizens of Oz, are united by Highways, whose treacherous twists andturns kill more of us each year than murderers. We are united in our lustfor international recognition, so desperate for praise we leap in joy when arag tag gaggle of corrupt IOC officials tells us Sydney is better thanBeijing. We are united by a democracy so flawed that a political party,albeit a redneck gun-toting one, can get a million votes and still not winone seat in Federal Parliament. Not that we're whingeing, we leave that toour Pommy immigrants.We want to make "no worries mate" our national phrase, "she'll be rightmate" our national attitude and "Waltzing Matilda" our national anthem (Sowhat if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide). We love sportso much our news readers can read the death toll from a sailing race andstill tell us who's winning. And we're the best in the world at all thesports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby, AFL, roo-shooting, two-upand horse racing. We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, theblackest aborigines and the worst-dressed Olympians in the known universe.We shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by sea and p!ssed by lunchtime.Even though we might seem a racist, closed-minded, sports-obsessed littlepeople, at least we feel better for it.You are, I am, we are Australian.

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